This is the Forward’s coverage of Jewish music, including klezmer and other traditions.
Music
The Latest
-
The Schmooze Singers From Outer Space Descend on New York
Photo by Leon Sokoletski A crash is heard at the Westside Theatre. Something unidentified, something flying, lands with a thud on the stage, and from the wreckage emerge eight figures. Bright white from head to toe except for ruby red lips, these creatures are from the planet Voca, a strange and exotic land where “life…
-
The Schmooze When Yiddish Came to North Korea
On September 4, 1965, Lin Jaldati stepped onto a stage in Pyongyang, North Korea and quite possibly became the first person in Communist North Korea to sing in Yiddish. As I will discuss in a July 13 talk at the Yiddish Book Center’s Paper Bridge Summer Arts Festival in Amherst, Mass., Jaldati and her husband,…
-
The Schmooze Tunisian Musician Dhafer Youssef Plays to Grateful Fans in Haifa
Crossposted from Haaretz When Dhafer Youssef and the three musicians accompanying him finished playing and were getting ready to leave the stage, the hundreds of people at Haifa’s Rappaport Auditorium Sunday burst out in a standing ovation. It was a collective thank you for the music of the preceding 90 minutes, but more was afoot….
-
The Schmooze Monday Music: Yiddish and Metal, Together Forever?
Courtesy of Dibbukim It’s almost too fitting that the band Dibbukim comes from Sweden. I don’t know that much about metal, but in my research I’ve found out that the country is home to such bands as Opeth, Amon Amarth, and Hammerfall. I’ve also watched a few episodes of the Adult Swim cartoon Metalocalypse, which,…
-
The Schmooze Checkpoint Music
Crossposted from Haaretz The Qalandiyah checkpoint, which over the years has become increasingly fortress-like, had yet to witness such a sight. Young people streamed toward it from both sides, armed with suspicious black cases and metal poles. The cases turned out to be for musical instruments, and the poles were folding music stands. The youth…
-
The Schmooze Music in the Key of Twombly
Crossposted from Haaretz Several years ago, on one of his trips to Europe, saxophonist Ariel Shibolet went to a museum and discovered the American artist Cy Twombly. “Abstract art often feels heavy,” says Shibolet, who creates abstract music, “but his drawings have a totally different feeling. They have something crispy, alive and close. I have…
-
The Schmooze For Ravid Kahalani of Yemen Blues, ‘Music Is My Religion’
Crossposted from Haaretz Singer Ravid Kahalani’s apartment in the trendy Basel neighborhood of north Tel Aviv is furnished in Moroccan style, and he’s Skype-ing in English with the mother of his daughter back in Finland. Next to a black piano stands a three-string bass instrument called a guembri, and the suitcases lying partially open on…
-
The Schmooze The Boy With ‘First World Problems’
Zach Katz, with his “The First World Problems Rap,” has provided a much-needed antidote to self-indulgent teen videos, like the one offered earlier this year by a bar mitzvah boy who shares his first name. (In case you missed it, “I’m Zack” by Zachary Freiman was a spectacular doozey.) The self-aware Katz belied his 17…
Explore
Most Popular
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Prominent NYC rabbi urges congregants to vote against Zohran Mamdani in Shabbat sermon
-
Fast Forward Ro Khanna, Democratic critic of Israel, says he supports Zionism and the ‘right for Israel to exist’
-
Fast Forward Thousands of haredi Orthodox Jews protest Israeli military draft in New York City
-
Fast Forward Arthur Waskow, activist rabbi who brought Jewish spiritual wisdom to bear on progressive politics, dies at 92
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
